There are some secrets you whisper to your lover in the heated fever of love. This wasn’t one of them. 

I am one of those cliched people you hear about in the movies. Journalist by day, superhero by night. Well, most nights are easy enough. You fight a bad guy or sometimes a bunch of them and you’re done before the sun hits the horizon. This time around however, something bigger was at stake. The survival of the world depended on me. There was only one problem. I was scheduled to attend a wedding. Well, mine actually. Catastrophe had come knocking at the wrong time.

It all started with this supervillain who always got under my nerves. He had a knack of coming up with plans that involved “destroying the world” or “wiping out the planet”. Whatever. I usually dealt with him pre-emptively. The moment I heard whispers of any of his usual grand plans to end the world, I would call on him to have a fierce one-on-one. Usually he never got the chance to set his plan in motion. 

This time however, I was busy planning my wedding and news of his evil plans didn’t reach me. And this bugger took advantage of it of course. 

Oh I didn’t realise I haven’t mentioned his name yet. This supervillain is named Storm-Eye. We journalists loved the puns that came with the territory. In our stories he would often storm out of the epic battles. And I’m Hell-Fire. Yeah, I know. I sound like the supervillain and he like a superhero. Unfortunate names. But powers maketh the names.

So while I was busy picking flowers for my centre pieces, Storm-Eye was planning how to end the world. You could say it was the calm before the storm. I can’t help it with the puns, you’ve been warned. As I was saying, Storm-Eye was planning to generate a Category 7 cyclone, so far a hypothetical storm. But superheroes and supervillains are supposed to be hypothetical too, so.

The night before my wedding was when I got wind of Storm-Eye’s plan. It fanned my fire and I was sure as hell going to be late for my own wedding. He planned to take advantage of a low-pressure zone in the Indian Ocean. He would pull the low-pressure zone to the Arabian Sea’s coastline to Mumbai where I lived and build up the intensity. We were going to be in the eye of the storm. Literally. His meticulous plan involved taking me out first along with my city and then bringing the storm to every place on earth.

And so here I was, right outside Storm-Eye’s supposed hideout. I could see a light on inside the warehouse. A florist’s van was parked in the driveway. He was ending the world tomorrow. Why did he need flowers? To celebrate? To top that, it wasn’t just any florist. It was my wedding florist. Guess what’s good enough for me is good enough for Storm-Eye.

When the front door opened and the florist exited, I crept back into the shadows. As the van turned the corner of his street, I approached the door and silently melted the lock. I slipped inside. Arrangements of white roses with single red ones lined the inside of the warehouse. Where had I seen that before? Is he sabotaging my wedding? Has he kidnapped my fiancé? Crazy possibilities were running in my head.

Just then, she walked in. She squealed loudly. What was she doing here? Storm-Eye’s suit had a helmet as a part of it and I’d never seen his face. And until now I’d assumed he was a fella, but turns out I was mistaken. My fiancé was Storm-Eye and I was too stunned to block her attack. She pinned me up high on the wall, I struggled but managed to remove my mask. Her face registered shock but she stayed put.

“So this is the famous Hell-Fire”, she said. “I should’ve known you’d get into my pants somehow.” I laughed at that. It was like a slap across her face.

“Think you’re too good for me?”, she was mad as hell. And I was going to rain fire on her. But I had a matter to attend to before I stopped her from carrying out her evil plan.

I asked, “Whatever are we going to do about our wedding, honey?”